Shikha Puri Impresses as Parveen Babi

American actress Shikha Puri impressed her director Reynold Baines when he recently met her for the launch of work on the movie The Three Kings. Aimed at the international market primarily, the much-anticipated film is based on the tragic story of beautiful flower child Parveen Babi, who breezed through Bollywood in the 1970s having affairs with a number of leading men and directors. Characters in the movie may be recognisable as Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman, Mahesh Bhatt, Kabir Bedi and Danny Denzongpa. Parveen had her biggest hits in movies with Amitabh such as Amar Akbar Anthony and Don.

Shikha appears to be taking the controversial route into Bollywood, trailblazed by others such as Rakhi Sawant, Mallika Sherawat and Sherlyn Chopra. She recently appeared topless in a movie with Fashion’s Harsh Chhaya called Dog, aimed at the international festival circuit. “The shoot went off well and I had no qualms taking my top off,” she says, “I am an actress and I come from the United States where one sees such scenes in films regularly.”

New Ahmedabad actress Bosky Sheth will be playing the role loosely based on Zeenat Aman in The Three Kings. “I am currently finishing my graduation in Commerce from a college in Mumbai,” she says, “I went and gave the screen test for Spectra Multimedia and to my utter surprise and disbelief, they called me a week later and asked me if I would like to do the role. I was simply stunned. Of course, I said yes. Who wouldn’t want such a challenging role?”